Photographs and Memories
by Yankee01754
Summary: The Riptide guys are temporarily unemployed after Cody is injured in a car crash. Needing something to occupy themselves they head to the Lazy M and help Cayce sort through old photographs and such.


Photographs and Memories

By Janet Brayden

Cody Allen was restless and in pain. He was also bored. Ever since he'd cracked up his GMC Jimmy, while chasing a suspect in a harassment case he and his partners were working on, and suffered several broken ribs and a minor concussion, he'd been chafing under the doctor's restrictions that he do nothing strenuous and that he rest – a lot.

Nick Ryder and Murray Bozinsky, his partners, were somewhat at a loss as to what to do with him. They refused to accept any cases until Cody was able to participate fully again but after a week of Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit and videos they were both – even the mild mannered Boz – ready to strangle him.

Rescue came in the form of a telephone call from Cayce McKenna – the young rancher they considered to be a little sister.

"Hi Nick!" she said when he answered the phone. "How is everybody?"

"Except for Cody," he replied, "we're fine."

"What's wrong with Cody?" Cayce asked anxiously.

"He totaled the Jimmy in an accident, while we were on a case, a week ago," Nick told her. "It's nothing serious – a few broken ribs and a mild concussion but he's under doctor's orders not to do anything remotely strenuous until he's healed up."

"Let me guess," she said. "A week of Scrabble, videos and whatnot hasn't relieved the boredom and you're ready to kill him."

"How'd you guess?" Ryder asked.

"It's ten years of knowing you guys, that's all," she replied. "I think I have a solution. Can you rent a car that will hold all three of you plus luggage?"

"Won't know until I try," he told her. "Why?"

"Well, I'm in between shows and training sessions right now so I've been cleaning out the attic," she explained. "I've found a whole bunch of pictures, albums, cards and such that I could use help with. I think we might even find some for you guys. Interested?"

"I can ask," Nick told her. "Hang on."

He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to his partners to put Cayce's proposition to them. He received yeses from both of them.

"Cayce? Yeah, we'll come up."

"If you have any trouble renting a car let me know," she told him. "I'll put it in my name with you as the driver or send someone to get you. Smokey is in Los Angeles on family business. I'm sure he wouldn't mind swinging by and picking you up and, once Cody's able to fly again, I can bring you back in the Baroness."

"Oh, Cayce," Nick continued, "Cody's really not hurt that bad. He looks worse than it really is."

"I know, Nick," she reassured him. "You never could lie to me and I'd know if he was – you'd give yourself away by _not_ saying anything about his injuries."

"How'd you get to be so smart?" he asked.

"I was always smart," she laughed. "Hanging around you guys made me smarter. See you when you get here."

About four hours later a rented mini-van pulled into the road leading up to the Lazy M ranch house. Rusty, Cayce's Australian Shepherd, ran out barking as it pulled into the yard. His actions brought Cayce, and her housekeeper Josefina Delgado, out of the house to greet the visitors.

Nick was the first one out of the van. When Cayce approached he reached out to tug on her braid.

"What's with the one braid?" he asked as she slapped his hand away.

"It's to keep you from pulling on it," she retorted as his partners grinned. Nick always tugged on Cayce's braids but this time she was determined to prevent it.

Cody and Boz greeted her with a kiss when Nick was through. Cayce's green eyes darkened with concern when she saw how pale Cody looked. One look at Cody's pale face and Josefina was fussing over him like a hen over her chicks. Cayce didn't even try to defend him. She understood what Josefina was saying and agreed wholeheartedly – Cody needed to rest for a while. It was obvious that the long trip had put a strain on the broken ribs – not all the roads in Cayce's part of California were in good shape – and that he was tired. His concussion was pretty much gone but he did still suffer from headaches.

Cayce and Josefina ushered him, immediately, to the guest room that he and Nick would share – the same one as last time. Josefina made him stretch out on the bed and got him some aspirin and a glass of water. Cayce covered him with the afghan that was folded and sitting on the chair by the window. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep after Cayce assured him that he wouldn't miss out on all the fun.

"I'll come get you once we get stuff out of the attic and down into the living room. That's going to take a while, so you just relax."

Cody gave her a weak smile and closed his eyes attempting to relax enough to fall asleep. Cayce and the others left the room quietly. Needless to say Josefina's mother complex had kicked in and she would keep a close eye on the injured man while the others worked in the attic.

"I hope you don't mind getting those clothes dirty," she said with a meaningful look at Nick's light colored pants. "The attic is pretty dirty and dusty – that's why I'm wearing these old jeans and denim shirt." She indicated her faded and worn jeans and the brown short-sleeved sweatshirt.

"I'll change and meet you up there," Nick said. "Which way to the attic?"

"The door at the end of the hall on the right," Cayce told him. The other door is a nice big cedar closet for my woolens – something I only wear when I travel east in the winter."

Nick retreated back to the guest room he was going to share with Cody. Murray followed Cayce up the stairs into the attic. The first thing he noticed was that it was hot but that Cayce had opened the windows on both sides of the room so that the breeze could blow through. He saw that she had a big box fan blowing in one of them, facing outward, in an attempt to pull some of the hot air out.

"Where do we start?" the Boz asked.

"Well, I was about to pull some boxes out from the eaves," she told him pointing in the direction of the items she was after. "If we get things out into the middle of the room it will make it easier to get them downstairs."

"That's a good idea," the slender, bespectacled man said. "I'll pull those out while you look around and see what else you want brought downstairs."

"Ok, but watch your head," his adopted sister told him. "I've hit my head more times than I care to count and you're taller than I am by several inches."

"Don't worry," Boz told her, "I'll be careful."

He got down on his knees and reached in for the closest box to the main part of the floor. It was three boxes later that Cayce, who was standing with her back to him, heard him hit his head and exclaim, "Ouch!"

"What did I tell you?" she asked.

Boz just grinned sheepishly as Nick joined them.

"What took you so long to change into those things?" Cayce asked him indicating his jeans and sleeveless sweatshirt.

"I didn't want to wake Cody up," he explained, "so I took my suitcase out into the hall and changed in the bathroom. "When I came out Josefina was coming in with some mending. She's taken up residence in the armchair by the window. You should see them," he chuckled. "He's sound asleep on the bed and Josefina is sitting in the chair watching him. Every time he moves she stops what she's doing to check on him."

"That's my Josefina," Cayce grinned. "You should have seen her when she found out about my twisted ankle a couple of months ago. She loves having somebody to fuss over."

"By the time we left you were barely limping," Nick pointed out.

"Yeah, but that doesn't stop a 'mother hen' – as you ought to know," she said pointedly.

Nick ignored that comment and asked, "What's the game plan here?"

"We're piling the boxes and such that I want to go through in the middle of the room," she told him. "Once I think we've got everything we'll start taking it down to the second floor and from there down to the living room. And for Pete's sake watch what you're doing! Boz has already hit his head and I don't want any more accidents!"

"Yes, Boss," Nick joked and started moving the boxes she indicated down to the second floor while she and Murray scouted out the next ones to be moved.

Walking around the attic, and occasionally getting down on her hands and knees, she located several boxes that she felt sure had trophies, ribbons and whatnot in them. She wouldn't know exactly what was what until she got them downstairs into the good light.

Cayce and Murray pulled quite a few boxes – some of them fairly large – into the middle of the attic and near the stairs to make it easier for Nick who was hauling everything down to the second floor hallway. He came back up the attic staircase as they were piling several small ones near the others.

"Nick! Don't take so many," Cayce scolded as he took up four boxes and started for the stairs. "You're gonna break your neck when you fall because you can't see where you're going!"

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "I'm fine."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he misjudged the number of stairs he had left and fell in a heap at the bottom. The smallest boxes flew up in the air and burst open as they weren't in very good shape to begin with. The contents, papers, ribbons and old clothes drifted down and landed on the floor, the other boxes and on Nick's head. The Italian sat on the floor looking stunned but seemingly unhurt as he got to his feet after a moment, pulling the clothes off his head and shoulders as he did so.

Cayce, once she was sure he wasn't hurt, started laughing at the sight as did Murray who's trademark giggle set his hostess off again. That was the one thing about their friendship that made Cody and Nick almost regret that they had ever introduced the two of them although, as Cayce rightly pointed out, she and Murray had already introduced themselves before Nick and Cody knew they'd met.. Cayce and Boz got on very well and were often seen, or heard, with their heads together giggling.

"Are you all right?" she asked once she could get her breath.

"Fine!" Nick snapped indignantly.

Cayce stopped giggling briefly and helped him pick up the stuff that had fallen all over the floor. A moment later rapid fire Spanish could be heard as Josefina's voice was heard scolding. Cody came around the corner and stopped up short when he saw the mess. His mouth opened, and closed, a few times before he finally swallowed whatever comment he had planned to make. Nick's face, red with a hint of anger at himself and a lot of embarrassment, told him that he'd be wise to keep his comments to himself.

"Sorry if we disturbed you, Cody," Cayce said. "Nick got a little overeager. You can see the results."

"Yeah, I see," Cody said willing himself not to make any smart remarks or start laughing. He knew if he did then Cayce and Boz would start all over again.

Josefina started clucking at Cody again pointing back toward the guest room where he was supposed to be resting.

Cayce intervened, "I think he's okay to go downstairs now, Josefina. Why don't you start on dinner?"

"Sí, Cayce, I will start dinner but Señor Cody must sit in a chair in the living room and rest or he will hurt those ribs."

"Better do it, Cody," Cayce advised him. "She's got it in her head that you need fussing over and she's not going to give it up. We'll be downstairs shortly. There are only a few more boxes I need to dig out. It will be interesting," she noted, "to see what my grandparents and parents put away so man years ago."

Reluctantly the blond detective did as she suggested. He decided it was probably better to pacify Josefina's motherly instincts than to get into trouble with her – or Cayce – because he was stubborn. He headed downstairs to the living room and made himself comfortable in her dark green wingback chair with his feet propped up on the brown footstool. Josefina handed him a copy of Reader's Digest, to look over while he waited for his friends to join him, then went into the kitchen to start dinner.

Fifteen minutes later, dusty, dirty, disheveled and with cobwebs in their hair, Cayce and the two men came downstairs laden with boxes and bags and one footlocker full of family photos and other memorabilia. It took them three trips to bring everything into the living room from the second floor. Fortunately there were no more incidents other than Cayce's braid getting caught on a nail that was sticking out of one of the rafters. It afforded Nick the opportunity he was denied earlier to pull on her braid like he always did. Cayce overlooked it this time since she needed his help. If she hadn't she would have smacked his hand and stuck her tongue out at him as she always did. As it was the braid had come undone and her hair now hung loose around her shoulders.

"You're a mess," Cody said to his friends when they walked into the room. "You're all dust and cobwebs. Cayce, your braid is half undone!"

"Yeah, well you try digging things out of a hot dusty attic and not getting dirty," Nick retorted. "If you didn't have those broken ribs you'd look just as bad as we do."

"All right already!" Cayce exclaimed. "You know Cody would help if he could."

Shamed by the dressing down he received from a young woman ten years younger than himself, Nick apologized to Cody. He knew it was true – Cody would help if he could. It wasn't his fault that he was restricted on activities due to his injured ribs.

They set the boxes down on the old sheets that Josefina had spread out on the clean carpet knowing that the living room was the one room big enough – and comfortable enough – for Cayce and friends to work in. It was especially important since Cody had the injured ribs to be mindful of.

Cayce took the box that had fallen apart on Nick first. The contents were mostly baby clothes that had been hers. The two older men had a good time teasing her about the frilly, ruffled dresses and nighties that had been hers when she was quite small. She merely turned her nose up in the air and ignored their jibes. When she'd turned three she'd declared her Independence from that sort of stuff and took her mother to the boys' departments to get pajamas if they couldn't find what she liked in the girls' departments of the Sears and Montgomery Ward stores they'd shopped in.

"Oh! I was looking for this!" Cayce exclaimed as she found her birth certificate. "I've been using a copy I got from the town hall back in Little Bend for the longest time. I've got to lock this up in the safe, or my safe deposit box at the bank, so it doesn't get lost again.

Murray took it from her and went out to Cayce's office to put it on her desk for the time being. She could lock it up later. He returned five minutes later having stopped to see if he could help Josefina in the kitchen but was promptly shooed out of the room by the matronly Mexican woman. No man was going to mess in her kitchen while she was working in it!

Cayce was just finishing folding the baby clothes and putting them aside to be put into a clean box when Murray returned. On top of them she had Nick place a piece of paper with Salvation Army written on it. If she ever got married, and had children, she would buy new clothes. With her parents and grandparents all dead there was no need for her to keep these things. If, in the meantime, she heard of a need in the neighborhood of the Lazy M she would donate those clothes to the cause.

The next box she opened was rather large. She squealed with delight when she saw what was in it.

"Snoopy!" she exclaimed. "I wondered where you'd gotten to!"

She pulled out a Snoopy autograph hound covered with signatures of family and friends. It had been many years since she'd seen him. Murray was curious and took the stuffed animal from her.

"Marguerite, Danny, Josh, Aunt Kelly, Sarah, Erika..." Boz read the names he found on it. "Uncle Brian. Mr. Ed. Mrs. Ed? Who was that?"

"Oh, they were neighbors of our who lived across the street when I was small. His name was Edmund Beebe and his wife's name was Priscilla – her friends called her Pat," Cayce explained. "One of the local TV stations had just started showing reruns of Mr. Ed. We used to call Mr. Beebe Mr. Ed and he'd jump up and down and whinny like a horse. We got used to thinking of him as Mr. Ed so that's how he signed Snoopy. Mrs. Beebe thought she'd get in on the fun."

"Hey!" Boz exclaimed. "How old were you when you got this? I see Nick and Cody's names on here! Lieutenant Allen and Lieutenant Ryder."

"Oh, I think I was about Uncle Brian was stationed down to Fort Sam. I had such a crush on Cody and Nick had me scared half to death at first. When I decided I liked both of them I asked them to sign." Taking a pen from Murray's ever-present pocket protector she asked, "Would you do me the very great honor of adding your name to the collection?"

"I'd be glad to," Murray responded with a huge grin and signed his name right under his partners'.

"Thanks, Murray," Cayce said. "Snoopy's going back in my room where he belongs. It must have been that first housekeeper that Uncle Brian had, after I went away to college, that put him away. She was a meddling old pain in the..."

"Cayce!" Cody exclaimed.

"Well she was!"

"What else have you got in there?" Nick asked in an attempt to change the subject before Cayce started using terminology that would bring Josefina on the run and get her in hot water with her uncle.

"My first teddy bear – 'Orangey'," she said as she pulled out an orange bear with yellow eyes.

"Orangey?" Cody asked.

"Yeah! What else would a five year old name an orange teddy bear?" she asked him.

"It makes perfect sense to me," Boz said. "It's only logical that she would name an orange teddy bear 'Orangey'."

The other two men just rolled their eyes. It was at this point in time that Josefina came into the living room from the kitchen to tell them that they needed to get cleaned up because dinner would be served within half an hour and they wouldn't be allowed near the table until they had showers and clean clothes on.

"She means it, guys," Cayce said with a grin. "The rest of this stuff will have to wait until after we eat."

The trio headed upstairs. Nick got first dibs on the shower in the guest room so Boz busied himself unpacking and putting his clothes in the dresser and the closet. Then he stowed his suitcase under the bed. By the time he was through Nick came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist and started digging clean clothes out. Murray took clean clothes into the bathroom with him, placed them on the hamper and, after retrieving a towel out of the linen closet for himself, got into the shower.

Fifteen minutes later all three of the attic cleaning crew were cleaned up and ready for dinner. They found Cody already seated at the table waiting for them. When he attempted to be the gentleman, and rise when Cayce came to the table, she scolded him about it and told him to stay seated.

"There's no sense in aggravating those ribs any more than you have to," she told him, "so sit down."

When everyone was seated Josefina came out of the kitchen bearing a platter of ham, a bowl of corn and a basket of hot rolls. She went back in and this time carried out a casserole dish full of butter baked potatoes. On her third trip she brought a tray with small salad dishes, a carafe filled with coffee which sat on a stand underneath which was a small tea light candle to keep the coffee hot and a pitcher of milk. Salt, pepper, butter for the rolls, serving spoons and the like were already on the table.

Cayce said a short blessing over the food and soon all four of them were digging in. Josefina declined to sit with them declaring that she would eat afterwards and before she did the dishes. She watched to see that Cody, the injured party, ate heartily in order to help spur the healing process. She watched Murray to make sure that he got his fair share – she was still determined to put some weight on the thin scientist.

When dinner was over, and the pecan pie ala mode had been devoured for dessert, the three men and their "sister" retreated back to the living room to look through some more boxes.

One box held old photo albums that were falling apart. Cayce had purchased new ones and had new labels for them so that she would be able to tell at a glance which ones dated from what years and which ones held her school pictures.

There were several pictures of Cayce with her grandparents and quite a few of her as a small child with her parents. These stopped a week before the accident that had taken John and Margaret "Meg" McKenna's lives when Cayce was just past her tenth birthday.

After the age of ten the pictures of Cayce were with her Uncle Brian McKenna and some of her McKenna and Knox cousins as well as other assorted cousins from both sides of the family.

"The Colonel hasn't changed a bit," Nick commented. "Still tall and almost as skinny as Boz."

"Yeah," Cayce grinned. "Josefina has almost – but not quite – given up trying to put some weight on him. He just doesn't gain more than ten pounds and chasing AWOL soldiers and escapees from the stockade doesn't let him keep it on anyway."

Murray, being the organized person that he was, wrote names and dates on the back of the pictures and put them into the albums Cayce had bought. This left her free to dig through another box – with Nick's dubious help since he insisted on getting into the same box she was in and snatching things out of her hands that amused him. One of these items was a small vinyl record with a picture of a cowboy, horse and a dog on it. The record was yellow and had a drawing of of the cowboy and the horse.

"Roy Rogers?" Nick started laughing. "Roy Rogers did a Little Golden Book record?"

"What's so surprising about that, Nick Ryder/" Cayce asked indignantly in defense of one of her first cowboy heroes – from the silver screen that was.

"Nothing," he said holding his hands up in self defense.

"I played that record over and over again until I didn't have a turntable I could it on any more. That's their theme song – his and Dale's. She wrote Happy Trails," Cayce told him. "It was written for a movie and it became their TV theme song."

"Okay," Nick said. "I remember that – sort of – but what's this other song? 'A Cowboy Needs A Horse'?"

"I remember that one, too," he was informed by the young woman who started singing, "Oh, a cowboy needs a horse, needs a horse, needs a horse  
And he's gotta have a rope, have a rope, have a rope  
And he oughta' have a song, have a song, have a song  
If he wants to keep ridin'

Now a cowboy needs a hat, needs a hat, needs a hat  
And a pair of fancy boots, fancy boots, fancy boots  
And a set of shiny spurs, shiny spurs, shiny spurs  
If he wants to keep ridin'

Oh, the fence is long, and the sun is hot  
And the good Lord knows that a cowboy's gotta keep  
Ridin', ridin' along

So he gets himself a horse, and a rope, and a song  
And he finds himself a hat, fancy boots, shiny spurs  
And there's nothing more he needs, or can have, or can get  
If he wants to keep ridin', ridin' along'."

"I remember seeing a cartoon on The Wonderful World of Disney where a little boy dreamed about riding broncs and chasing cattle and such. I think Mom and Dad bought me that record but I don't remember for sure. I've had it forever."

Murray took it from her and put it in a place he thought would be safe along with some other records she found and a couple of eight track tapes that she said had been Brian McKenna's.

"Mom and Dad's wedding picture," Cayce sighed when she found it. "I never asked for it to be packed away and I know Uncle Brian wouldn't have either. It must have been that housekeeper we had when he first got custody of me. She thought having too many pictures around cluttered the place up and was always putting things in drawers or boxes. Some of my family pictures have been hidden away for years. This is one of them and it's going on the top shelf of the bookcase in this room!"

Cayce was not a melancholy person, though she had her moments when she wished her parents were still alive to see what she'd accomplished. The discovery of all these items was a little hard on her. She loved her Uncle Brian, though, and was thankful that he'd stepped forward to take her in and raise her as his own. Some tears fell when she found pictures taken of her and her parents the day they were killed. The guys offered her silent support and a squeeze of her hand and shoulder. Nick and Cody were familiar with what had happened – Colonel McKenna had told them some time ago. When Boz looked at them enquiringly Cody and Nick both gave him a look that squelched his questions and told him that they'd tell him the whole story later.

"Hey guys!" Cayce suddenly exclaimed in delight. "Look! The first pictures of the three of us. I wondered where they were!"

Indeed the two older men were pictured in their fatigues and just stepping off a plane at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Cayce, along with a host of others, was there to greet the soldiers returning from the jungles of Vietnam. The photographer had managed to catch Cayce giving the two handsome young lieutenants hugs and they, thrilled to have someone not screaming at them and insulting them as they had at other stops, were returning the hugs enthusiastically.

"Look, here's Nick with that pretty little Lieutenant from South Carolina," Cody said. "Whatever happened to her?"

"She got transferred to Fort Lewis, I think," Cayce said. "That's if she's the one I think she is."

"You were such a skinny, awkward little thing," Nick teased Cayce as he studied the tall, thin pre-teen in the picture. Her hair was in braids, as she often wore it now, and her clothes seemed too big for her small frame.

"And she had braces, too," Cody recalled with a grin.

"I was _not_ skinny!" Cayce protested.

"You were skinny," Nick insisted.

"_And _you wore braces," Cody stated again.

"And she had loads of freckles besides," Nick added.

"Yes, I wore braces! Yes, I had freckles – a few – not a lot but I was _not_ skinny! Boz, tell them I wasn't skinny!"

"Gee, I don't know, Cayce," Boz said getting in on the fun. "You do look kind of skinny in that picture."

"Men!" she exclaimed in disgust just as Josefina came out of the kitchen.

"Cayce? Que pasa? Why do you sound that way when talking to your _amigos_? Your _hermanos_?"

"_Mamacita_, they say I am skinny in these pictures. I say I am not skinny – the housekeeper we had before you always bought my clothes too big."

"_Sí_, she did, but you were also skinny."

The men laughed and Cayce stuck her tongue out at them which made everybody laugh. She still acted like a kid a lot of times.

Josefina smiled as she watched them and then added, "But not as skinny as Señor Murray."

Everybody laughed at that – even Murray. Brigadier General Douglas "Pitbull" Johnson, Cayce's unofficial godfather, had told Boz that if he had him in his outfit he'd put some meat on his bones. Boz only admitted to being slender and said that he worked out. It didn't make any difference though – Murray seemed incapable of gaining weight.

"Let's see what else we dug out," Cayce said as Josefina left for the night.

Nick pulled over a large, heavy looking box that surprised him with how light it actually was. He took Cayce's pocket knife and slit the tape that sealed it. Handing the knife back to her he pulled the flaps away and Cody reached in – pulling out an item that was well wrapped in bubble wrap. He handed it to Cayce who squealed in delight when she unwrapped a wooden object resembling a train car.

"My cable car! I thought I'd lost this in one of our moves!" she told them. "Uncle Brian bought it for me when I was ten – a few months after my folks died. He went to San Francisco so he could attend some sort of training for the MPs. He couldn't take me with him because he didn't know what kind of hours he was going to have to keep. He left me with that housekeeper I told you about. I was miserable the whole time and cried every night when he called me. It was hard enough not to have my mom and dad but now my new 'dad' was gone for two weeks – and he didn't have full custody of me yet so I was afraid somebody would come and take me away from him. Uncle Brian bought me this musical cable car and gave it to me when got back.

Winding it up she handed it to Cody who heard "I Left My Heart In San Francisco". He handed it to Nick and finally it got back to Cayce after Murray had his chance to listen to it.

"I can see why it's so special to you," Cody said, "under the circumstances."

Cayce found another album, that was falling apart, in the box. It was full of pictures from her life an an Army brat. There were a lot of pictures with Nick and Cody in them from the time Cayce turned thirteen until she was almost sixteen. When Nick, in particular, had heard Cayce's history he'd made a special effort to be friends with her only to have her be frightened of him when she witnessed his somewhat legendary temper. Cody she had been drawn to almost immediately for the elder of the two lieutenants was quiet and soft spoken and kind. Gradually, Cayce had, warmed up to Nick and now the three of them were like siblings.

"She's not so skinny in these pictures," Cody commented with a wink at Nick and Murray.

"One more wise crack about me having been skinny," Cayce warned him, "and your sore ribs are going to be even sorer than they are!"

"Okay, okay," he laughed.

The group stayed up a little bit longer but by ten o'clock all of them were ready for bed. It had been a long trip for the men from King Harbor and Cayce was an early riser so that she could attend to feeding and watering the horses that would be working and cleaning the stalls that were in use. Then it would be time for breakfast and other chores as well as meeting with her foreman, Alex McGregor, over the schedule of who was to work which job and which horses were in need of shoes and such like.

Early afternoon found the friends looking through more boxes. Josefina's lunch of sandwiches, drinks, chips and carrot sticks disappeared quickly as they were eager to get back to work. After taking their dishes out to the kitchen they congregated in the living room again. This time they found old books and magazines which Cayce sorted through. Boz found a couple that looked interesting so Cayce gave them to him once she knew that she didn't want them back. He could read them and give them to the library in King Harbor when he was done if he wanted to or give them to the Salvation Army.

They found more old clothes in another box. They seemed to have been Cayce's when she was in her pre-teen years but there were also some of Colonel McKenna's old civilian clothes which gave Cayce a good laugh. She'd forgotten what a "fashion plate" her uncle had been. There were bell bottomed pants with embroidery on them, embroidered shirts, various and assorted ties and some tie dyed tee shirts.

"Next time Uncle Brian comes out I'm going to show him these," Cayce said. "Didn't I see some pictures of him wearing these things?"

"Yes," Boz replied handing her the pile he'd been looking through.

"Oh, I'm gonna have so much fun with these!" she exclaimed, her green eyes sparkling.

"Are you going to let us in on the fun?" Cody asked.

"Sure," she replied. "I'll make sure I spring these things on him when you're all here. It ought to be very interesting."

The best time of the day came when they discovered some old games that Cayce had had when she was a child. There was an old BINGO game with cardboard cards and wooden tokens, a dominoes set that had been Brian McKenna's – Cayce never cared much for it, Scrabble, Sorry and, much to Cayce's delight Battleship and Tip It.

Murray took the Tip It game out the box and eyed it curiously. He'd never seen this game before.

"How do you play this game, Cayce?" he asked.

You set up the 'tripod' as I call it and put the disks on the spindles in a certain order," she explained. "Then you put the little man on the top of the pole – he's supposed to balance on his nose. Then you spin the dial and use that spatula thing to remove disks from the spindles according to the color the needle lands on. You can make it very hard for your opponents by stacking the disks on one side. It makes the little man wobble whenever they try to remove a disk. The winner is the one with the most points – each disk is worth a certain amount of points according to color – at the end of the game which is when somebody makes the little man fall."

"That sounds like fun!" Boz enthused. "Could we try it?"

"Sure, if you want to," Cayce said. "But watch out for Nick," she added with a smirk, "he gets very frustrated when he can't remove the disks right and makes the little man fall."

"I do not!" the detective protested.

"Yes, you do," Cayce grinned.

"Do not!"

"Yes, you do, Nick," Cody said with a smirk. "You get very frustrated when Cayce beats you."

"Ever seen a grown man cry over losing a game, Murray?" Cayce asked. "If it's not this one it's the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots."

"Hey! I do not cry over losing a game," Nick stated vehemently, "and even if I did it's because Cayce cheats!"

"I don't cheat, Nick," his "little sister" told him, "you get frustrated and lose patience – that's why you lose."

"I have to agree, Nick," Cody said. "You have no patience for these things."

"I'll show you who has patience," Nick said. "Set that game up and let's get started!"

They set the game up and for an hour and a half they played – Cayce, Boz and Nick. Just as Cayce had predicted, Nick got frustrated, moved too fast and and either knocked the little man from his perch or caused him to fall by overloading one of the spindles several times. She and Boz both giggled constantly as they watched his face.

"Okay, Miss Smarty," Nick said after losing his tenth game of Tip It. "Get those robots out!"

Cody had gotten tired and was dozing on the couch while Cayce and Nick took turns playing with the robots with Murray. Cayce lured Nick into a false sense of security by making it seem that she wasn't paying much attention to what he was doing with his robot. Continually she moved her robot out of his reach and finally knocked the head off his robot. The look of surprise on his face started her and Murray giggling again.

However, it was the game of Battleship they played that became the straw that broke the camel's back. Cayce slowly, and methodically figured out exactly where Nick had his ships set up. It was soon apparent that he was outclassed. His yowl of outrage roused Cody out of his sleep.

"What's wrong?" a sleepy eyed Cody asked.

"She sank my battleship!" Nick told him.

The laughter, that followed this statement, could be heard all the way down to the bunkhouse.


End file.
